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clasped hands permanently dyed red with the blood of sacrificed bandi roosters. They cried openly for rain, which had not come in strength for three years. Their women, who neither prayed nor begged after years of burying their children, spat at this display of weakness.
    In a seedy flat above a basket shop in Jompa, a prostitute prayed for fifty cril, otherwise he would be dead by morning. He had gambling debts. Adrash knew also that the man had jaleri eggs lining his urethra and would be dead by month’s end.
    On the southeastern shore of Nens Abasin, a young acolyte of The Unending Luck cast her line and prayed for an old, sick fish. She had no desire to incur the soul debt for taking a new life. The order forbade her from throwing back a catch, yet her luck had been so abysmal lately that she would not hesitate to do so. Breaking the rule would undoubtedly mean more bad luck in the long run, thus reinforcing the cycle, but the girl did not care. She could not see how it mattered. Luck touched some and shunned others altogether.
    Adrash felt the briefest moment of communion. He wished he could answer the girl’s prayer. If he were closer to the world’s surface, perhaps he would asphyxiate an old fish and let it lap upon the shore at her feet. He had once, if rarely, enjoyed this kind of intervention.
    In the cold mines under the Old City of Ghys, nearly a mile below the searing sand of the Tomen Desert, a Demni mage prayed her alchemy had been correct. She could not remember if the spell was heart before liver, and what effect the wrong order would produce.
    It was not heart before liver, Adrash knew. The smell of the infusion would attract diamond spiders. The mage would soon have a great deal to worry about, and for a moment Adrash was tempted to watch the ensuing battle.
    Instead, he focused elsewhere. His mind touched here and there, lingering on the personal entreaties, passing over the formulaic prayers and liturgies. Prayers to other gods—those shadowy figures Adrash had once caused to live and then destroyed, and whose memory somehow managed to linger in the souls of men—he ignored. They were of the same quality as those directed to him.
    Words damning him he saved for last. They were the most amusing. He had no expectation that this time he would find what he was looking for. A singular voice might never be found. The world might be destroyed tomorrow, should he find his patience at an end. Or the world might go on forever while he spiraled into new realms of madness.
    The spheres spun at his back, waiting.

PART ONE

VEDAS TEZUL
    THE 13 th OF THE MONTH OF SOLDIERS, 12499 MD
THE CITY OF GOLNA, NATION OF DARETH HLUM

    V edas watched the square through a crack in the stockroom door.
    The pulse pounded in his throat and temples, causing his vision to shudder slightly. He felt calm despite this, assured by the familiar sensation. As the street scene grew lighter, its weathered doorways and stonework angles more defined before him, he settled into the comfortable hum of readiness.
    The black fabric of his suit hugged his powerful frame like a second skin.
    He stood in the traditional waiting stance of the lo fighter, feet shoulder-width apart, hands resting lightly atop his staff, which came to just below his chin. Back straight, knees slightly bent. A man could stand in this posture for many hours, minutely shifting his weight from foot to foot, meditating on the subtle tense and release of muscle.
    Behind him, sixteen children were trying and failing to contain their nervousness. They were a quiet group. Nonetheless, Vedas heard and recognized every movement behind him. After eight hours cramped together, he had come to identify each youth’s breathing and nervous habits. They scratched themselves, sniffled, sighed. They fingered the black sashes tied around their upper arms, needlessly adjusting the material that marked them as official recruits to the Thirteenth Order of Black Suits.
    The acrid smell of